It is known to use a laminated tape as a stretchable closure for baby diapers, or as elastic sides of a diaper. The laminate has, relative to the direction it travels when being manufactured, transversely spaced strips of high stretchiness or elasticity and semielastic properties alternating with stiff relatively unstretchy strips. The not stretchy regions facilitate attachment after the material has been cut to shape, i.e. prepared into closure elements, for example to hook tapes, to secure the closure tabs of the diaper. For cost-advantageous production of such closure elements, an elongated laminate tape is produced that has longitudinally extending portions that are semielastic alternating with portions that are not stretchy. The closure elements required for diaper production are then cut from the resulting multi-use laminate.
As described in copending patent application Ser. No. 12/413,647 such a tape can be made by feeding in a transport direction a substrate strip having a pair of opposite faces and formed of an elastomer that is highly stretchable longitudinally but only limitedly or not stretchy at all transversely to a gluing station with the longitudinal high-stretch direction of the strip generally perpendicular to the transport direction. A plurality of lines of adhesive extending in the transport direction and generally perpendicular to the high-stretch direction are applied to one of the faces of the substrate strip at the station. Then a soft knit fabric cover strip that is highly stretchable longitudinally but only limitedly or not stretchy at all transversely extending longitudinally is pressed against one or both faces of the substrate strip with the high-stretch direction of the cover strip or strips generally perpendicular to the transport direction to form a laminate. Finally the laminate is cut transversely of the transport direction into individual tapes with the adhesive strips extending transversely of the long dimension of the individual tapes.
Another such laminate is known from U.S. Pat. No. 7,470,340 having outer fleece layers and a layer of an elastomeric foil laminated between the fleece outer layers. The core layer is formed by longitudinally extending and transversely spaced elastomeric foil strips laminated between the outer layers, so that the outer fleece layers are directly connected with one another between the foil strips. At the elastomeric strips, the fleece is transversely stretched. This creates active regions in which the laminate is elastic and very stretchy. In the unactivated regions, the laminate is not stretchy. In this system the core foil strips consist of thermoplastic elastomers, e.g. SBS block copolymers, SIS block copolymers, polyurethanes, or thermoplastic polyolefin elastomers. The above-described polymers are expensive raw materials. Furthermore, feeding and handling elastomer foils in the lamination process is difficult, because elastic monofoils are tacky and elongate in the longitudinal direction as they are fed into and move through the laminater. At high production speeds, the monofoils elongate longitudinally. After the laminate has been bonded together, the elastomeric monofoil relaxes once the web tension is released. This leads to uncontrolled and undesirable wrinkling of the laminate. In order to be able to process the monofoil, additional complicated measures are required, and these have a disadvantageous effect on production costs.